


So the Songs Tell Us

by kuiske



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Khazad October on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-12
Updated: 2015-10-12
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:24:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4988287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuiske/pseuds/kuiske
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Come, my child. Tell, have I told you the story of King Thorin and the halfling burglar of his Company?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	So the Songs Tell Us

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not making money with this. All rights to the respectful owners.

Come, my child. Tell, have I told you the story of King Thorin and the halfling burglar of his Company?

It’s a sad story, to be sure. As you know, Durin’s folk had been driven to long exile by the fire-drake Smaug and though they were wandering no longer, their settlement in Ered Luin was not a true home to those who remembered the golden halls of their stolen kingdom. None among them longed to return as fiercely as King Thorin, and thus when a chance arose for him to reclaim Erebor he saw that he must seize it, or else forever give up hope of taking back what was stolen. 

Giving up had never been in the King’s nature, so he let it be known that he was summoning dwarves to join him on his Quest. Very few answered his call, for though the dream of the Golden City lived in the hearts of the exiles, many and more perceived it as just a dream while the peace and security of the Blue Mountains was a tangible thing. Perhaps they were also cowed by the memory of the battle of Azanulbizar where countless of their kinfolk had fallen attempting to reclaim Khazad-Dûm. The King remembered both the Dragonfire and the pyres of Dimrill Dale, and he would not condemn as cowards those who would not risk facing more fire. In the end only twelve dwarves would follow King Thorin. Twelve dwarves and a halfing from the Shire.

The journey from the West to the Lonely Mountain was long and full of peril and a source for more tales that can be told in one night. Suffice it to say that during the journey every member of the Company proved their worth many times over and a friendship grew between the dwarves and the halfling. He was indeed brave and as capable of moving unseen as the Grey Wizard had promised, and a great help in tasks that required cunning and invisibility. Even King Thorin, who was ever slow to kindle to friendship and trust, grew to regard him with respect and fondness, loathe as he had initially been to include him in the Company. 

*

So it came to pass that Erebor was reclaimed and the dragon Smaug slain by Bard of Laketown with a black arrow that had been forged beneath the Mountain in the reign of King Thrór. Now, a dragonslayer’s rightful reward is all the gold and jewels the beast has used to make his armour, a treasure beyond price in its own right. Smaug had sank to the bottom of the Lake, however, and the Men sought to claim a greater prize with less trouble than diving for the dragon’s hide. They turned towards Erebor for riches instead, being certain that the Company was dead and the Mountain with all its gold now without a guardian. The Men were not alone with their thoughts; the elves of Mirkwood had seen the dragon fall and desired to claim the gold for themselves, and the orcs and goblins in the surrounding area also saw their chance to seize the dwarven Mountain and its treasure.

Their hopes for easy plunder were soon dashed, because the Company was neither dead nor had they been idle. The King had guessed, quite correctly, that the dwarven right to their Mountain and to the treasure shaped by the hands of their ancestors would mean as little to marauding fortune-seekers as it had once meant to Smaug. Therefore he gave the order for the Gate to be barricaded, and the unified forces of elves and men met not a kingdom open for the taking, but a wall of stone blocking the way to the Mountain who once again had her children to defend her. 

King Thorin had no love for the Elvenking who had offered the dwarves no aid the day the dragon came, but he was not wholly unwilling to treat with the Men of the Lake. Erebor and Dale had been allies and so they could be once again. The King was also not a fool nor was he blind; he could see the Men and elves were both armed to the teeth, and armed hosts make no requests, only demands. And such demands they were as to put to shame anyone but the Dragon himself! One twelfth share of the entire treasure did the Men claim as belonging rightfully to themselves, and they were full of curses for greedy and mad dwarves when the King would not acquiesce to their demands. Instead of sending away the elves who had no place in the negotiations at all, instead of agreeing to lay down their arms and negotiate as traders and not as bandits, Bard of Laketown laid the Mountain under siege until the King would see fit to bend the knee and surrender the wealth of his people as he was told.

You may recall me telling how the dwarves of the Company had come to consider their halfling burglar a friend and worth of great trust and respect. This friendship was not diminished after they had retaken the Mountain. King Thorin himself gifted him a chain-mail forged of mithril links: a gift of whose like no one had received from the dwarves since the days when Durin ruled Khazad-Dûm and Celebrimbor was the Lord of Eregion. 

And here, my child, is where we get to the sad part. You have heard the songs and you know how the story ends. There was a great battle against orcish armies and King Thorin fell in the battle defending his homeland and his nephews, seeing their mother’s brother fall, leapt forward and fell defending him. Never forget that it was with blood and great grief that your peaceful life in Erebor today was bought. Yet all the world knows orcs are cruel and evil, and many good souls have fallen and will fall fighting against them. Spears and swords cut deep and grief even deeper, but it is betrayal that cuts the deepest of all.

There was only piece in the vast treasure King Thorin had claimed for his own. It was the Arkenstone, named the King’s Jewel and thus Thorin's by right, and its beauty had no equal among all the jewels beneath the earth. The Company searched for the Arkenstone for days, never knowing that the halfling had found it already and had kept his discovery a secret. Then one night the burglar took all his skill at stealth and cunning he had used to aid the Company against their foes on the Quest and he turned it against them instead. Under cover of darkness he slipped out of the besieged fortress and was soon found and escorted to the Elvenking’s tent. So spoke the burglar to the Elvenking:

“You cannot defeat the dwarves through strength of arms, for I know them well and they will fight to the death to defend what is theirs. They have become very dear to me and I do not wish to see them slain. Yet they will not fight alone, Thorin’s cousin Dáin rides from the Iron Hills to come to his aid,” Then the burglar drew out of his pocket the stolen Arkenstone and handed it over to the Elvenking who in all his years had never seen its like. “But they _will_ surrender to this, for this is the Arkenstone of Thrór, which is the Heart of the Mountain, and the Heart of Thorin also. I have taken it for myself and now I give it to you. Thorin will be compelled to give you anything you ask in exchange for this.”

Now, I cannot tell why the halfling would choose to give his loyalty to the Elvenking who had shown himself an enemy of dwarves when the Mountain first fell, and yet again during the Quest by imprisoning the Company in his dungeons. (A fact that was well known to the halfling, since it had been him who helped them escape.) Indeed through his actions the Elvenking had lost the right to even look upon the Mountain, save for that right which can be bought with force of arms. I cannot you tell why, because I do not understand myself. The Company had no cause to suspect treachery that night, because the halfling went back to them the same way he’d left to avoid raising suspicion.

*

The next day saw The Elvenking and Bard of Laketown return to repeat their demands of gold. King Thorin refused them as he had refused them before: he would not treat with armed brigands, and with the Elvenking not at all. Then Bard smiled and pulled the Arkenstone out of his pocket and it shone in his hand like the Sun and the Moon. And the Company cried out with dismay, for it was a great pain to them to see the King’s Jewel in the hands of those who’d taken arms against them, and a great crime besides. Though his blood ran cold as ice at the sight Thorin dismissed the Arkenstone in Bard’s hand as a trick of sorcery, for he could not see how it could’ve found its way to their enemy's hands.

“The stone is real,” said the burglar behind them. “I have given it to them.”

“You would steal from me?” cried King Thorin in disbelief, and then cursed him for a thief and a traitor.

“No no no no, you’ve quite misunderstood,” the burglar denied. “I’m no thief, I am an honest burglar. I have stolen nothing, I have simply taken for myself what I knew wasn't mine to take. And I am not a traitor, I have only given away what I knew you valued most.”

King Thorin screamed out his rage and grief, overcome with the knowledge of how utterly he had been betrayed, and then he seized the halfling by the throat and lifted him up and over the battlements. Looking into the face of the burglar who wore a friend's face and spoke with a dragon’s tongue Thorin declared his life forfeit and sought to throw him down and allow his body to break upon the rocks below. 

It isn’t known why he did not do so. Perhaps it was the Grey Wizard asking for mercy for the halfling, though it is unlikely, since the King was never particularly fond of the Wizard who treated the dwarves as children or then as pawns to advance his own ends. It is more likely that even through his great anger and desire for vengeance the King recalled it was evil to take even a traitor’s life like this. By rights one found guilty for crimes such as his should be slain by the King’s sword and not by a long drop over the battlements. Therefore Thorin tossed the halfing on the floor, but he did not draw his weapon.

“Begone to your friends, you miserable rat!” the King hissed at the halfling voice laced with fury and utter contempt. “You’re banished from my Kingdom forever, and from all the dwarven realms beneath the earth. For the services you have given I will allow you to leave with your life and to take with you the armour I bestowed upon you as a gift, but know that no friendship of mine shall go with you. Both the mail and the mercy are more than you deserve. Go, and be cursed with all you kin!”

Then the King turned away from him, for he had no wish to look upon the false friend who had taken his friendship and trust and spat on it. The Company turned away also. They felt no less keenly the burglar’s betrayal, and indeed many among them felt the King had been too generous in showing mercy to him. 

*

Some stories tell that as King Thorin lay on his deathbed after the battle he forgave the burglar and repealed his banishment and asked for forgiveness for the manner he had almost taken his life. This may well be true, for the halfling is said to have been present when the King was laid to rest in stone with the Arkenstone upon his breast and his fallen nephews by his side.

But you should always take note of what is not mentioned in any tales. For though it is said that the halfling grieved the King’s passing, there are no stories told where the he in turn asks for King Thorin to forgive him for his theft and treachery. There are, indeed, no stories where the halfling ever felt any remorse at all for betraying the King’s trust, or ones where he during the course of his very long life ever admitted to having wronged the King at all.

And therein lies the lesson, my child, and it is a bitter one to learn, and painful. We must trade with the other races, and we might make them our allies against orcs and goblins, we might even call them friends, but never must we trust them with what matters to us, for our trust will not be returned with loyalty. When it comes to choosing a side, not even the ones we regard as dear friends will ever choose to stand with us against the elves or men. Even those who won't spit while speaking of dwarves are quick to name theft an act of _friendship_ in their tales, and call betrayal _wisdom_. For they all stand as one in considering dwarves beneath them and thus undeserving to keep the great treasures our Mountains gift us to be shaped even greater by the skill of our hands, undeserving of loyalty and respect. 

No shared peril and hardship, no friendship or trust or a gift given will change the fact that at the end of the day, even the King Under the Mountain is nothing but a _dwarf_ to any of them.

**Author's Note:**

> It's all in the name. Bilbo is the protagonist, the narrator and the author of the Hobbit both in the book and movies. There is just no way in hell the dwarves would tell stories of the Quest in the same tone or with the same underlying moral as _The Hobbit's Tale by Bilbo Baggins_. 
> 
> Also this story operates under the premise that the gold-sickness was never a real thing, but a bit of anti-dwarven propaganda cooked up by other races as justification for their actions. Thorin was not insane when he dangled Bilbo over the battlements, he was betrayed and furious because Bilbo worked with his enemies to defeat him, and he wanted him dead.
> 
> The title and (the slightly butchered) quotes in the story are pilfered from LotR or the Hobbit.


End file.
